What Is Right Livelihood?

It is based on traditional Buddhist teaching.The goal is not just prosperity, but to do work that does no harm to others, that benefits others, and that brings personal fulfillment.

The Quest for Right Livelihood

Right livelhood is ethical livelihood. | Source

Right livelihood is based on the teachings of Buddha, a sage who lived in India sometime between the fourth and sixth century BCE. His teachings became the basis of the non-theistic religion of Buddhism.

He taught that the way to achieve enlightenment and to end human suffering was to follow the “Noble Eightfold Path.” There are three divisions of paths--Wisdom, Conduct, and Concentration. Each of the "paths” is designated by the term “right,” meaning ethical or moral.

Right Livelihood is one of the three paths of Conduct.

The Eightfold Path

Division

Path

Wisdom

Right view

Wisdom

Right intention

Conduct

Right speech

Conduct

Right action

Conduct

Right livelihood

Concentration

Right effort

Concentration

Right mindfulness

Concentration

Right concentration

The Three Paths of Conduct

There are eight spokes on the Buddhist dharma wheel. The above three spokes deal with right conduct. | Source

What Was Buddha’s Definition of Right Livelihood?

Buddha defined five precepts of right livelihood. Certain professions were forbidden because they resulted in harm to other living beings. These professions are:

Business in weapons

Business in human beings (Slavery, prostitution, anything to do with the exploitation of sex)

Business in meat ("Meat" refers to the bodies of living beings after they are killed. This includes breeding animals for slaughter as well as the use of their bodies for food, garments, tools, etc.).

Business in intoxicants (The manufacture or selling of intoxicating drinks or addictive drugs.)

Business in poison (The manufacture or selling any kind of poison or a toxic product designed to kill.)

The Modern Definition of Right Livelihood

The three commandments for modern day right livelihood: don't lie, don't steal, don't cheat. | Source

What Is a Modern Day Definition of Right Livelihood?

Buddha lived in a much different time. If you are not a Buddhist, you may not wish to follow the prohibitions against meat and intoxicants. As for me, I’m OK with poisons that kill the cockroaches or other vermin that would otherwise overrun my home.

Additionally, everything is so inter-related that it is hard to be “pure.” Perhaps you work in a store that sells many good products but also products that exploit the labor of third world farmers or manufacturers. For the sake of right livelihood, should you be obliged to quit that job?

In the modern world, I think we must follow the spirit, if not the letter, of the law. In the 21st century, right livelihood means staying as far as possible from activities that cause harm and being ethical in your business dealings.

What does it mean to be ethical in your business dealings? It means: Do not lie. Do not steal. Do not cheat. Be honest with your customers and vendors, be honest with your co-workers, and be honest with your employer (or your employees if you are the employer). For instance, a person who engages in right livelihood would not sell shoddy goods, would not try to take advantage of another person in a business deal, would not take credit for someone else’s work, would not undermine a co-worker for personal advancement, would not take home office supplies, etc.—you get the idea.

An employee engaged in right livelihood would give a full day day’s work for a day’s pay, and an employer would pay a living wage to his employees.

Another part of right livelihood is treating everyone you come in contact with during the course of your work with courtesy, kindness, and respect. If you are in a position of authority, you help the people who work under you to grow and advance. If you are an employee, you are willing to go out of your way to help your co-workers or to show a new employee the ropes. It is going the extra mile. It is doing every task to the best of your ability.

What Types of Professions Are Consistent with Right Livelihood?

Obviously a profession that helps others, a doctor or nurse or lab technician, a cook or a waitress, a teacher, a scientist, a social worker, etc.--is consistent with right livelihood. Obviously, being a pimp, or a drug dealer, or a hit man is not.

However, it is not only the profession, but how the duties of that profession are executed that matters. A lawyer that helps exonerate the innocent is engaging in right livelihood; a district attorney who prosecutes a person he knows to be innocent is not. An accountant who keeps the books for a company is engaging in right livelihood; an accountant that cooks the books is not. A doctor who performs an operation to save a person’s life is engaging in right livelihood; a doctor who performs an unnecessary operation just to collect a fee is not.

Find the Joy. Follow Your Bliss.

Right livelihood is doing work that you love. | Source

How Can We Achieve Personal Fulfillment?

Buddha wished to ease human suffering. Anyone who has ever had to do a job they hated, day after day, year after year, just because they needed the paycheck knows what it is to suffer. Personal fulfillment is a basic human need.

There are two ways to get to personal fulfillment. You can change your attitude or you can change your job.

Change your attitude by “finding the joy.” There are some aspects of every job that are unpleasant, but most jobs are not 100% soul-crushing drudgery. Enjoy the interactions with your co-workers or customers. Enjoy a sense of pride in a job well done.

See if there are ways to make the job more pleasant. Sometimes even small changes can help.

Perhaps it is not the work itself, but the work environment that is at fault. You might find personal fulfillment from your work if you can find another job doing the same or similar work, but with better working conditions.

Of course, the best way to gain personal fulfillment is to do the work you love. This is sometimes referred to as "following your bliss"--doing work that makes you happy.

Pick the Right Occupation for You.

Right livelihood is matching your passion to your talent to find the work that is right for you. | Source

How Can You Find Work You Love?

The first thing you need to do to find work you love is to identify what kind of work you love. The second task is to identify what kinds of jobs are a good match for your passions and talents. And finally, you have to prepare yourself for the job of your dreams.

You can identify what kind of work you love by making a list of all the things that you enjoy. Name this list “My Passions.” Do you like being outdoors, do you like children, animals, talking to people, making things, reading, drawing—put everything on the list.

In the second column next to each passion, write down a list of possible occupations. For instance, if you like animals, you could list veterinarian, zoo worker, pet store worker, breeder, farm worker, ranch worker, animal trainer, dog groomer, dog walker, dog boarder, and probably a dozen more.

When you are done with your lists--it might take several weeks, or even months, to complete them as you think of additional occupations that fit your interests.. Select the occupations that most appeal to you. List the skills needed for that job. Do you have those skills? If not, list all the ways you can learn them.

What type of work matches your passions and your talents? If you need to learn new skills, what will it take to get those skills? Is it feasible for you to get those skills?

After a while, you may find that a few occupations have a strong "pull.” Start reading about those occupations. Start talking about those occupations. Mention your interest to everyone you know or meet. You never know who will have some good advice for you or who may have a lead for you, or who might even have a job for you. Once you know what you want, dedication and perseverance will get you there.

Find Your Right Livelihood

This book inspired me. It gave me an overview of the thinking from many different traditions, not just Buddhism. The book includes essays on Amish economics, Islamic banking, and the psychology of mindfulness. It helped me to understand the many ways of applying right livelihood to my daily life. Not every essay was perfect for me, but each one offered some good ideas to think about.

Don't Let Perfect Be the Enemy of Good.

It may not be possible to do no harm. Also, not everything is clear-cut. In the process of doing something that is good for the world and yourself, you may have to be associated with something you feel is not so good. See if the good outweighs the bad. Figure out how you can minimize the harm.

You may not find the perfect job. The perfect job for you may not even exist. If you can find a reasonable amount of satisfaction from your work, count yourself lucky.

Always keep your desire for right livelihood in the front of your mind, and you will be fine. The neurolinguistic movement tells us we get what we think about.

Please feel free to give your opinions or advice.

No HTML is allowed in comments, but URLs will be hyperlinked. Comments are not for promoting your articles or other sites.

sending

AUTHOR

Catherine Giordano

18 months agofrom Orlando Florida

I am talking about what Buddha actually taught. After 2500+ years, many Buddhist sects have taken root. Many of them do not adhere to the teachings of Buddha. Many have overlaid other religious beliefs onto Buddhism. And like members of religions all over the world, many who claim to be part of a particular religion do not actually live by the teachings of that religion.

Carol Taylor

18 months ago

An interesting read as I have lived in Thailand for the last 7 years and the religion is predominantly Buddhist. Given some of the Buddhists occupations .....my mind struggles with some of the concepts :) A good post.

AUTHOR

Catherine Giordano

4 years agofrom Orlando Florida

kannanwrites. Thanks for the compliment. Glad you liked it. What Buddha said 2500 years ago still works today.

Kannan Reddy

4 years agofrom Mumbai

Liked the presentation of this hub and your definition and understanding of the concept in the modern day context.

Thanks.

AUTHOR

Catherine Giordano

4 years agofrom Orlando Florida

Thank you Missi. I first heard of right livelihood in the '80s, so I hope you are right that it is an idea whose time has come.

missirupp

4 years ago

I think more people in the future will be looking for an article like this.

AUTHOR

Catherine Giordano

4 years agofrom Orlando Florida

Thank you MsDora. What I warn against in this piece is "trying to be pure." I don't want people to feel guilty that they are not "pure" enough. I think if we simply keep the idea of "right livelihood" in our mind, it will impact our working lives for the better. You are right that it is about attitude and intention.

Dora Weithers

4 years agofrom The Caribbean

'Everything is so inter-related that it is hard to be “pure.”' I guess that attitudes and intentions count for much in this case. Your article has some really good points to ponder and apply.

AUTHOR

Catherine Giordano

4 years agofrom Orlando Florida

Ven: Thank you for the great compliment of sharing my piece on social media. I'm going to check out your blog because I am very much interested in "right living"--living an ethical life with compassion and love for our fellow beings. Many of the essays I do on HubPages I do with the objective of helping people.

AUTHOR

Catherine Giordano

4 years agofrom Orlando Florida

Iris: The absolute best compliment I could have is a link. I wrote this in response to your Drinking the Kool-Aid piece. You wrote a very personal essay about trying to earn a living without violating your ethics and I wanted to approach the issue in a different way and urge you not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Venkatachari M

4 years agofrom Hyderabad, India

A very interesting article. I like it very much. I always try to make people aware of ethics and morals through my writings at my blog vnktchari.blogspot.in and I appreciate that you are so much concerned about these things.

Voted up and interesting. I am sharing this on fb and twitter also.

Cristen Iris

4 years agofrom Boise, Idaho

Thank you, my friend! You are an inspiration and I have added this link to my Drinking the Kool-Aid piece. You made my entire day. :)

AUTHOR

Catherine Giordano

4 years agofrom Orlando Florida

I'm smiling, firstday. Yes, , I did indeed mention a few of the 10 commandments. Morality is morality no matter where it comes from.

R Beggs

4 years agofrom Lincoln, Nebraska

CatherineGiordano

The truth in scripture is in all religions. Sort of like the 10 commandments. I wonder how many people remember those. You mentioned a few above.

AUTHOR

Catherine Giordano

4 years agofrom Orlando Florida

I first heard the term "right livelihood" all the way back in the 80's. I've been living in accordance with it ever since. I never knew it was a Buddhist term before I started to do research to write this essay. You don't have to be a Buddhist to believe in right livelihood. For modern day, the precepts of Buddha do not necessarily apply. What matters is no lying, no stealing, no cheating and doing the work you love.

AUTHOR

Catherine Giordano

4 years agofrom Orlando Florida

Thank you firstday. I'm glad you liked it and found it useful. I think Buddhism is a philosophy that is compatible with any religion that teaches ethical living as they pretty much all do.

R Beggs

4 years agofrom Lincoln, Nebraska

I enjoyed reading this and like the way you broke down the eight fold path with a chart. A lot of folks will benefit by reading this no matter what their religion. Thank you for sharing your story on what led you to writing. I voted thumbs up and useful.

Connect with us

This website uses cookies

As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, toughnickel.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.

This is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy)

Google AdSense Host API

This service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)

This is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)

Facebook Login

You can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)

Maven

This supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy)

We may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites.

Conversion Tracking Pixels

We may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service.

Statistics

Author Google Analytics

This is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy)

Comscore

ComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy)

Amazon Tracking Pixel

Some articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy)